Keeping the Sun
by Madame Meg
Summary: “No matter how dark the night, somehow the sun rises once again and all shadows are chased away.” One shot.


**Author's Note: So, this takes place after Breaking Dawn. You basically get to see Renesmee growing up, Bella's thoughts on this and how she moves completely on from Jake. I didn't like how perfect the ending to Breaking Dawn was with Jake and all. I'd like to believe that there was more to it. So this is my piece.**

**Be forewarned there is a lot of skipping in time. You'll have to keep up to understand it. It shouldn't be hard! Hope you enjoy.**

She spun around once, twice, thrice. Her dress flared around her waist, exposing her underwear for the living room to see. I saw Emmett snicker and Esme smile fondly, glancing over at Carlisle. They shared a look, one that only couples share.

"You look beautiful," I complimented. Renesmee smiled, twirling once more for affect.

"Thank you, Mama. I love it!" she'd said. Alice had beamed—she had given my daughter the dress, of course.

"You do look beautiful." Rose's voice was soft.

"Oh, yes. You're going to knock those boys off of their feet," Emmett agreed, saying that purely to grate on Edward's nerves. I'd grimaced. I didn't want to think of when she'd be older and taken away from us, someday to live her own life.

Throughout the years she wore that dress. Even when it barely covered her she'd try and stretch the material.

"You have so many pretty dresses. You should throw that ratty thing out and wear something else," I eventually said. She vehemently shook her head.

"But I _love_ it." Her eyes, so big and innocent stared at me. I knew what intelligence lurked behind those eyes, what maturity, but I smiled as if she was really the five year old she appeared to be. "Can I please, please, please keep it?"

"Alright," I agreed. "But you do have to throw it out soon."

"You're so soft on her," Jake would later tease me when I recounted this story to him.

I playfully shoved him. "So are you so don't even try and say_ I'm_ soft."

He grinned, flashing me his white teeth. "I am not soft on her. I'm extremely strict."

I raised my eyebrow. "Oh, really? And who is it that took her to the park, after I said no, when she begged you? Hmm?"

He flushed. "That's different."

I laughed, throwing my bookmark at him playfully. He ducked, grinning, and it reminded me of everything at once. At our friendship, at our love. At how much I gained by having him around and just what I was losing. It made me disconsolate. My jaw tightened. I focused back on the subject.

"But it's not!" I denied, shaking my head. A few brunette strands of my hair brushed my cheek. I pushed it back over my shoulder.

He straightened his back, probably trying to look manly and intimidating. I cracked a smile at that, shutting the book I had been attempting to read to give him my undivided attention. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"It is different. I am usually extremely strict. For example, when I took her to the park and a little boy flirted with her I pulled her away!" He looked so serious, and so proud that I knew he wasn't joking. For moment, I just stared. Then I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Jake, little kids don't flirt. They're just friendly," I tried to explain. He wouldn't hear of it.

Renesmee also grew to have a fondness for painting. I remember she would spend hours in the kitchen finger painting, drawing up rather intricate drawings especially considering her age. She was only physically around five when this started.

"It's beautiful," Edward would always assure her. He would stand by her side, looking over her shoulder. Hours would go by and he would never lose internet in watching her smear paint along not only herself but everything around her.

"It's for you," she would say in return. He would take her newest painting from her then, and while she painted some more on a clean piece of white paper he would stare at it in wonderment.

"She got her creativity from you." My voice was quiet, hushed, as if I spoke any louder that it would disrupt our daughter's drawing.

And then my husband would smile and look at the drawing again.

Jake liked to watch her, too. I'd placed my hand on his arm, content to be beside him. But then I would feel almost embarrassed, shy, as I inhaled his familiar scent. I didn't realize even then some small part of me loved him still.

And he'd place his hand over mine, squeezing it gently as if he knew what I was thinking.

Nessie liked to help Esme bake. I'd help them make cookies then, even if the smell now repulsed me.

"Mama," she once whispered softly. "Bend down."

I bent down like she was about to tell me a secret, my white apron crinkling as I did so. She was mixing the cookie batter, staring at me with such a cute smile I didn't even realize her hand was in the cookie batter grabbing a clump of it until she shoved it into my face.

I'd blinked. And blinked.

"Hey!" I'd finally protested. She'd erupted into giggles, and with a smile I took an inch of the dough and smeared it on her cheek.

Her favorite holiday became Halloween. She loved dressing up. My personal favorite was when she dressed up as Grandpa Carlisle, wearing scrubs, gloves and everything else that a doctor wore when on the job. Carlisle had been flattered and amused.

Even though with her growing so rapidly she didn't go out in public much everyone loved her. Edward, Jake and I took her out. She loved receiving the candy from everyone. If they only gave her one piece she looked up at them with her big brown eyes and just stared until they gave her more.

Renesmee also loved nature. Sometimes we'd lay outside in the warm weather, watching the birds fly by and the clouds become distinct shapes.

"Rabbit."

"Bear."

"Cat."

"Frog."

"Vampire!" And then Nessie would burst into laughter. It was our game, to point out the shapes of the clouds and say what we thought they resembled. She always had to pretend one was a vampire or a werewolf and she thought it was hysterical. I laughed because she laughed.

"You know, I think the sun is very pretty," she remarked to me once.

"I used to consider Jake my sun," I said simply. At that she rolled over, propping her chin up on her elbow. She looked at me curiously.

"What do you mean?" she asked. Curiosity drenched her tone. I reached over and plucked a piece of grass off of the ground, holding it above me. It was a bright green and slightly damp, shinning in the sunlight. I let it go and it drifted a few inches in the wind before slowly floating to the ground.

"Jake is my best friend."

"But he's my best friend, too!" she quickly interrupted, insecure. I smiled.

"Yes, he is," I agreed. "But he always brightened up my day. So I called him my sun. He meant everything to me."

She had always been intelligent. Her eyes sharpened, eyeing me warily as if what I said was absurd. "You talk as if he has died."

I frowned, placing my arms behind my head. "He's not dead. He's just not… mine. He's not completely mine anymore."

She watched me, her eyes narrowing and her lips pursing as she considered this.

"Why didn't you keep him for yourself? He was your sun," she reminded me.

She was too young to learn all of this, I knew. To learn the entire story. And so I rolled over so I was on my side facing her. I wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close, listening to her comforting heart beat. "You don't keep the sun up in the sky to yourself, do you? It's for everyone to share." And I took a deep breath, inhaling her scent. "And just as that isn't yours to keep, he wasn't mine to keep."

And as we laid there together on that grass I thought over everything that had happened. Our meeting at La Push, his fascination with me. How he told me those horror stories to try and scare me, the stories that turned out to be true. I thought of us riding those motorcycles, of him begging me not to leave when I went to save Edward.

_Don't go._

Some small part of me knew, even then, that staying with him, that letting Edward die was impossible for me, against every force of gravity that held me to this Earth. I knew that it was as impossible as keeping the sun as my own, as keeping the sun to hold, to love, to possess.

Alice, unfortunately, managed to get Nessie into shopping.

"Don't you love it, Mama?" she'd say, prancing around the room as she showed off her new pair of jeans. I thought they were awfully tight for a girl who was only physically twelve.

"Um…"

"I knew you would!" she enthused. Edward entered the room and took one look at the jeans.

"No," was all he said and then he walked out.

She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the empty doorway in horror. Then she stomped her foot in frustration, something she'd most likely learned from Alice. And occasionally, as I was embarrassed to admit, me.

When she got to be physically sixteen was when the real attraction between her and Jake started. I'd see them staring at each for extended periods of time, enraptured in each other as if they were seeing a fascinating sculpture.

"Puppy love," Alice had cooed out, clasping her hands together dramatically. "It is so cute! Do I hear wedding bells soon?"

I'd frowned at Edward. How had she gotten so old so quickly? It seemed impossible for the time to have flown by like that.

Edward had looked at me then. I knew without a doubt he was thinking the same thing.

"If he does anything with her before she turns eighteen…" He let the threat hang, not bothering to finish it. I had patted his arm comfortingly.

Jake would come to us, and with a hesitant expression would tell us he was taking her to the movies, or to the mall. He was smart, however, and never announced this when I wasn't in the room. Edward would have forbidden Nessie from going if he'd had his way.

But Jake stayed honorable. He only kissed her on the cheek until she reached the age of eighteen. I could tell she began to grow unsatisfied with their dates.

"Why doesn't he ever kiss me? Is there something wrong with me?" she'd come inside, her feet dragging on the floor.

"Nothing is wrong with you and don't ever think that!" I hurried to defend my only daughter. She dropped onto the couch dramatically.

"He won't kiss me!" she complained, groaning loudly. "Why, Mom?"

How do you explain to your teenage daughter that her father would quite possibly kill her boyfriend if he did do just that? There's a simple answer to that. You don't.

"He's too old to be kissing you right now and he knows it," I said simply. "Once you physically reach eighteen… well, talk to him then."

Talking wasn't necessary. The day Carlisle deducted she was physically eighteen Jake had walked over and kissed her smack on the lips. Alice had applauded, Rosalie had smiled. Esme looked ready to giggle and Carlisle politely looked away. Edward had shuddered.

They were engaged not long after.

"Mom, Dad!" She had bounded into the house, giggling up a storm. Alice looked irritated, realizing something big had happened and she hadn't been able to see it. She looked irritated until Nessie had held out her hand, that is, showing us her ring.

"Look! He proposed, Mom! He proposed!"

Edward's mouth had fallen open. Shock pierced me as well. So soon? In my eyes she was still a child. She still had forever to learn things.

But I had pushed that aside and stood up from the couch, pulling her into my embrace. She had been so happy that I made myself happy for her. I'd stroked her pretty hair and gossiped about wedding details. I'd made appreciative sounds when she repeated the proposal word for word at every appropriate time. And yet inside I was hollow.

Later that night I had cried silently, no tears falling but sobs wracking my form. I was gaining so much, and most importantly her happiness from this. But in the process I was losing her and my sun. I had years to prep myself. But this was the real thing.

But when Edward walked her down that aisle in that beautiful white dress, a trail following behind it I made peace with myself. With that big smile upon her face, with that glow of happiness surrounding Jake, it was impossible for me to not be happy for her.

It was as impossible as me keeping the sun, something, somewhere, I had always known.

**Author's Note: Just something quick I wrote up because I was inspired. Sorry for any mistakes. I re-read it but since it's five in the morning and I have yet to go to sleep I might have missed some things. I'll check back over it later.**

**I hope you enjoyed it! Please review. **

**Xoxo**


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